Snow
by Gravity. What Gravity
Summary: Yogscast zoethian / zoeythian yogfic! Based on the prompt 'snow' given to me on my Tumblr. A Drabble/one-shot about Rythian's feelings about Zoey on a snowy night.


Each flake was the same, a carbon copy of the one before. Every one looked like the same snippet of the silvery cobwebs that dominated Blackrock Stronghold.  
Rythian hovered on the roof of his castle, their castle, surveying the area around him. Moonlight bathed the farm, where the runes had been cleared. Rythian had promised he wouldn't touch the farm, but he knew she would never forgive him if the creatures got hurt because he couldn't be bothered to simply clear away the lave runes and build a small shelter, just to shield them from the cold winter grasp.  
Just east of the stronghold, Rythian could see the beacons of light scattered along the perimeter. The fire still roared, burning any stray zombies too brainless to notice the threat. Around each beacon, the white blanket had melted. Rythian couldn't help but smile despite himself, thinking of his 'baby' that would be turning the falling snow to ash.  
The grin disappeared off his face just as quick as it had appeared, memories flashing before his eyes.  
The gut wrenching panic as she mentioned the baby in the woods. Floods of relief as he realised that it was just another silly joke of hers. And the thoughts... Rythian spent the night next to the sleeping red head lost in his own mind. Questions and answers whirled around in his head. What would he have done if somehow there really was a baby? The panic Rythian had felt was not for the thought of a little boy in his life, but for the fear of the curse he would inherit from his father. The endermen would come for the innocent child...  
Sjin and Duncan brutally mudering his boy in a desperate attempt to weaken the Mage? That definitely crossed his mind too.  
Rythian was pulled out of his memories by a flicker of fire in the winter woods. He stepped off the roof, swooping forward just above where he saw the flame. No. Not fire. Hair... Red hair.  
"Zoeya?" He called out into the icy night, his voice cracked and broken.  
"Rythian? Is that you?" She emerged from behind am overgrown tree. Rythian was taken back by her appearance. Her overgrown hair was tangled, twigs sticking out in every direction. Her usual battle stripes remained intact, but were joined by mud and ash smeared across her face. A cropped black vest showed off her new black tattoos... No, not tattoos. The patterns looked as though they had been burned into her pale skin.  
Head bowed, Zoeya took a timid step forward, out of the shadows. Rythian gasped as he saw the exposed flesh on her right leg. Shock, then rage replaced his happiness. That was a gunshot wound. Who the heck thought they had the right to hurt Zoeya? His Zoeya? Lalna. Sjin. Xephos. Every name he could think of flashed before his eyes, exposing his true paranoia. Hell - even Nilesy crossed his mind!  
"Rythy? Look Ryth, I'm so, so, so sorry! I was scared.. No! Not of you! Well yeah, of you, but not how you think. I didn't wasn't you to hate me like you and I couldn't face you hating me. I couldn't live with you hating me. And that message I didn't see? I bet that was you telling me not to come back, wasn't it? Yeah. That's why you're standing there all confuzzled and stuff." Zoeya paused for a monent, catching her breath and staring at the masked man above her, eyes pleading.  
She turned around, tearing her eyes away from her master. "Um, yeah. I'm just gonna go now. So, uh, b- ah!" Strong, tanned arms snaked there way around the technomage's bare waste, hugging her close to the man that stood behind her. He rested his chin on the top of her head, eyes closed, content with being so close to his love after what seemed like a lifetime apart.  
Awkwardly, she tried to twist in Rythian's arms to face him. He loosened his grip, letting her wrap her arms around his neck with equal force.  
"Of course I don't hate you, Zoeya." Rythian whispered, burying his head in her squalid hair. The stench coming off them both, the bags around his purple eyes from days of no sleep, and the concave stomach pressed against him, from weeks of starvation... They didn't matter.  
A single tear rolled off her cheek, from the pain of the gunshot wound, the happiness of being with the Mage and the regret that filled her form tip to toe for leaving him behind... Leaving her family behind. Words couldn't describe Zoeya's gratitude towards her friend, that he'd made an exception to his usual 'no second chances' attitude to forgive her mistakes.  
Pulling away slightly, Rythian glanced down at her wounded leg. The skin around it was red and sore, and something black - the bullet? - was still lodged inside her flesh. He bent down and grazed his hand against the fragile skin, only to hear the hiss of steam and quickly pull away. Looking up to check she wouldn't see, the Mage pulled off a cloth glove to inspect the olive skin below. Burnt. Red raw like he'd stuck his hand I'm a furnace.  
"Who..?"  
"Teep. I did say he went a bit crazy town banana pants." There was a half smile in her voice, but as Rythian's head snapped up, there a hunger for revenge burned in the purple of his eyes.  
Silence. Time stood as Rythian calculated the situation.  
Slowly, he stood. His right arm wrapped around Zoeya's waist, carefully placed. As if she was a delicate glass statue, as if she'd break if he pushed her too hard. She returned the favour, supporting herself by holding tightly onto his shoulder and neck.  
They took the journey back to Blackrock Stronghold in small steps, with Rythian supporting his injured friend. Naturally she rambled on about how the mushrooms were running into. They had a long way to go, and many enimies around them... But as the snow fell around them, somehow they knew it would turn out okay.

A/N: This was originally posted to Tumblr on my blog Zoethianismyotp, but here you are!


End file.
